This blog represents where the remains of my creative energies go when I'm not using them to do a bunch of other stuff. I write screenplays (three have been produced and aired as TV movies on the Hallmark Channel and are now available on DVD online: Santa Jr. , Monster Makers and Wedding Daze . ) I am currently working on several feature film scripts which are under wraps (especially considering the current writers' strike...) but I hope to tell you more about them as they get closer to becoming "real". If you'd like to contact me regarding screenwriting opportunities, please visit the website for my manager, Wendy Winks, at her A Wink And A Nod Productions.
In addition to movie-length movies, I'm no stranger to short subjects. During the 2005 48-Hour Film Project, I was recruited to head up writing the entry for Scattershot Productions, one of 26 teams in the San Francisco segment of the contest. We produced The Write Stuff, which went on to take both Best Film and Best Script honors, which put us into Top 5 contention with the 4 other Best Films from cities around the country. As a part of the second round, I wrote Essence, our entry which did not win but was critically lauded.
Since then I have been working toward producing web-based series. Sausalito-based Crackle.com funded a pilot for SpamBusters!, a comedy series in 3-minute 'sodes, and we have received an order for four 'sodes which are now in development. I am also working with my friend Matt Weinhold and Sparkhill Productions in Los Angeles to produce Space, a suspense-based web series.
For the past 20 years a major focus of my writing and creative firepower has gone to creating brand names. I worked for 16 years with the prestigious Lexicon Branding, Inc. and have been consulting since then through the auspices of my Simmer Branding Studio, an offshoot of Simmer Think Tank & Tiki Lounge, which I operate with my friend and fellow writer Jonathan Littman. Among our most recent credentials are Crackle.com, the nüvi GPS device from Garmin International and the title for Love Smart, Dr. Phil's relationship book.
Writing for another format altogether, I am on the writing staff for LA's hottest sketch comedy group, Fries On The Side, where we put up a fresh slate of comedy sketches each week when we're "in season" (roughly March or April through October) at the Meisner Center in North Hollywood. In addition I submit freelance material to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and work with Dana Carvey on material for his standup comedy, website and any other crazy ideas he gets from time to time.
One of my regular features here on The Daily Grill is my phodoodles -- a form of cartoon created by using photo manipulation and a variety of different pieces of shots brought together to create a single image. My work is also featured as editorial cartoons each week for the Half Moon Bay Review newspaper and as the accompanying cartoon with Peter Seidman's UpFront column in Marin County's weekly Pacific Sun newspaper. (The Review reprints my 'toon online each week, while the Sun has yet to do so -- until then, you can see them here.)
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